In my previous post Silver Asiatic asked:
“What do you mean by organization being of a higher order than simple order? Why don’t these [natural] forces produce organization? Those are better areas for discussion, in my opinion.” (comment #122)
Organization
I think the distinction organization vs. order is fundamental in the design / evolution debate. Perhaps the easiest way to help us understand this difference is to consider computer software. Software clearly implies the four basic aspects of organization I listed there: hierarchy of functions and tasks, control-power, inter-process communication. Also biological systems, from cells to higher organisms, show all these aspects (“organ-isms” contain organs). Life is software. (Disclaimer: obviously here I consider only the cybernetic aspects of biology, I am not dealing with mind, soul, spirit, etc..) Organisms are organized as computer networks. This sort of isomorphism (similar mathematical structure) between software and biology is also the reason why one needs the former to understand, model and simulate the latter.
Organization is what gives a multiplicity of parts an organic unity. In other words, organization is an holistic concept, according to which a true whole is higher than the sum of its parts (see here). The parts of an airplane per se don’t fly, their organization causes this capacity of the whole airplane. Analogously, the chemicals per se don’t make life, their organization causes the life capacity of the whole organism. Life is organization.
Box rightly said:
“These arguments from organization stem from holism. When we observe an organism, we observe a whole. We do not observe a bag of chemicals, as materialism/Darwinism wants us to believe.” (comment #82)
Similarly:
“The living being has inside himself his own principle of unity, superior to the multiplicity of the elements that take part in his constitution.” (René Guénon, “Autorité spirituelle et pouvoir temporel”, chap. 5 [my translation])
Order
Differently, order is lower in essence than organization. Order means simply configuration, pattern, layout of elements in the space. Examples: my books are ordered in their book-shelf; atoms are ordered in the crystals; cars are ordered in the parking. No one of the above aspects of organization is present. Order is simple static patterns, organization is complex dynamic systems. In computer programming order can be formalized by means of mere definition and assignment of variables (the simplest thing of software). Example, the bookshelf layout can be described (in Perl language) by means of a single variable $bookshelf:
$bookshelf = <<EOV;
BB BBBBB BB
———————–
BB BBB
———————–
BBBBB BBBB
———————–
EOV
No function, no task, no control, no communication is necessary to describe the bookshelf layout. In general, order needs simply the definition of variables and the assignment of values, which the computer will store in its memory. If to define order implies only the simplest software concept, while to define organization we need all the more complex stuff of software, that means that order has inferior rank than organization.
If we have to model the working of a biological cell we need all the organizational power of a programming language: functions, processes, controls, communication and many other advanced features. Example, in computer programming the simplest decision instruction able to perform a control or regulation has the structure:
# prior situation
if (_conditions_) {
_action1_
} else {
_action2_
}
# after situation
Note that decision implies choice among two or more alternatives, depending on conditions. A decision breaks the causal chain and inserts a choice discontinuity between "prior situation" and "after situation". These kind of decisional constructs can be nested ad libitum in a program to create complex control chains. Software is control. But "complex control/regulation chains" is a ritornello you find also countless times in the texts on cellular biology or systems biology. Norbert Wiener defines cybernetics as the science that deals with "control and communication in systems and organisms". Similarly, in Mike Behe's "Darwin's black box" the string "control*" appears 66 times and the string "regulat*" 62 times. Behe explicitly writes:
“The essence of cellular life is regulation: the cell controls how much and what kinds of chemicals it makes; when it loses control, it dies.” (“Darwin’s black box”, chap 9, pag. 191)
Why don’t natural forces produce organization?
Natural laws can be described by means of a basic set of equations. These equations represent the direct relations between variables, and directly assign values to these variables. Here a key point is the term “direct” and “directly”. Example, in classical physics the Newton’s formula “f=m*a” assigns a value to “f” (or “m” or “a”) when the other two are known. That’s simple. The formula doesn’t contain the least control structure, implying a discontinuity. In fact Newton’s second law of motion is not something like this:
# prior situation
f= {if (_conditions_) {_action1(m) _} else {_action2(m) _}} * a
# after situation
Note that in the original formula f=m*a, between a “prior situation” and an “after situation”, there is no discontinuity due to decisions that break the causation by introducing choices (as massively exist in software). This is an important point: in natural laws there aren’t decisions; natural laws have no choices. This is true for all physical laws, also when they are expressed as differential equations (wave equation, Maxwell’s equations, Schrödinger equation…). This lack of decision-control-choice implies that natural laws potentially contain no organization, in the sense I defined at the beginning.
Since natural laws contain in potency no organization to greater reason they cannot create organization. In fact in general what creates must always be higher in essence and more powerful than what is created. Otherwise we would have an illogic situation where more comes from less. In a similar sense Thomas Aquinas said “Since in the world there are many intelligent causes, the first Motor couldn’t cause unintelligently.” (Summa contra Gentiles, I, 44 [my translation]). If the organizational potential of the cause is zero, a fortiori the organization of its effects is zero. In Aristotelian terms, if a thing is null “in potency”, is also null “in act”. So it is impossible that natural laws, as we know them, produce organization.
Obviously if natural laws (necessity) are unable to create organization, to greater reason randomness (chance) is unable. In fact, randomness not even has the minimum power that natural laws have and provide. Chance is lower in rank than laws. If chance and necessity, taken alone, are incapable of organization, also considered working together they are incapable (the sum of two zeroes is zero).
Conclusion: given chance and necessity per se are incapable to produce organization, the best explanation for the formidable organization of the universe and its living beings is a designing Intelligence (Source of knowledge), who has thought it as an overall organic unique project.